Fallowfell; Second Semester Chapter – 13

A week passes by, and we draw near the end of January. In other words, just four to five more months of winter. Yay. Elena ends every conversation, every text-message, every email we share with the words “moreover, I think that we should have a party at your place”. It seems that she has learned something from the history lessons.

/Damn Carthaginians. I… Greyscale remembers them./ I freeze in my chair.Wait, you met one?/Greyscale only heard of them by association. He was somewhere else in the world at the time. But Hannibal only crossed the Alps through the help of a member of the Flight. This aid was not given freely, but rather a price was expected. Hannibal never payed it, and when the Third Punic War erupted, the Flight turned blind eyes to the pleading of the Carthaginians. But… there was one who remembered the human’s betrayal./

I swallow audibly. Three centuries after Hannibal’s crossing Vesuvius exploded. History says that it was a volcano, but Verde’s memories tells another story. A story of broken eggs, rage and a black dragon that covers the sky. How did that oath go, the one that supernaturals swear by when they are serious? I… I swear it by claw,spell, fang and sword. I swear it by the fastened roads and forgotten realm. I swear it by a prince of lies, a wyrm of midnight, a priestess of the temples and a firstborn of the blood. I connect the dots; the member of the Flight who destroyed Vesuvius, who remember Hannibal’s betrayal is no other than one of the five Council-members.

My phone vibrates; Have you done the english-homework?Moreover, I think that we should have a party at your place. I sigh. She isn’t going to give up, is she? In a reversal of our usual procedure, Verde takes my memories and shows them to me in a series of vignettes; Elena climbing a sheer wall of mountain despite my warning, me sitting and reading a book about geography as Elena kicks a hitting-post ten-thousand times and Elena judging the distance between a statue of one of the Founders and the water ballon in her hand….

Yeah, she isn’t going to give up. I fire away a text.

***

Kai Blut places one hand on the snow. A red tendril, two-dimensional, sneaks up on a pile of snow he has gathered. The southern end of the tendril connects to a lit metal brazier.

He takes a step back, removing his hand from the snow in the process. He stares intently at the bloodthread. The fire of the brazier winks out simultaneously as part of the snow pile implodes. The bloodthread vanish. He raises his hand against the sky and makes the victory sign.

His phone makes a chirping sound. He unlocks it and checks the message. The left corner of his mouth curves up.

***

A blast of dirt and snow cascades in all directions. Amina Pavlov walks up to the epicenter of the blast and withdraws a ruler. She measures the destruction, then makes a tsk-sound with her mouth.

“Needs more nitroglycerin”, she remarks. Her laptop, on which she details her experiments, alerts her to the fact that she has a new message. She checks it and hoots. “Dammit, I am going to have to get a new batch of ‘shine’…”

***

Sara Eksjö stares at the message. Rune Fallowfell…. he has the looks of the henchman of some Bond-villain and the heart of a rabbit. And yet, there is something. Something on the edge of her memory, something specifically about him that is repelling. Something horrifying.

Nobody else seems to see it.

She focus on that sensation–
— and she hears a roar and then there is a great serpent in the cafeteria at Ochre. Spikes of iron stabs her head and blood flows freely out of her nose. She blinks, and between blinks, her attention is pulled to more important things. Like what to wear.

It is not until she holds a white blouse in front of her chest that she realizes that she is bleeding from her nose.

***

Nevena Stanislaw takes a sip from her soda, while glancing down at her phone. “You know you want to go”, someone says from the entry to their kitchen. Miroslava leans back, and rolls the wheelchair over the threshhold.

Nevena watches her young sister for a moment before staring yet again at the message. “It’s not that easy”, she eventually says. “Sure it is”, her sister offers with the innocence of the very young.

Nevena continues to stare at her phone.

***

Pontus Malmgren pushes against the floor, his weight balanced on his two toes and his arms. One. Two. Why did Hannah break up with him? Three. Four.Five. She never hinted at anything. Six.Seven.Eight. Girls!Nine.Ten.Eleven. His concentration is momentarily disrupted as his phone vibrates and falls on the floor.

He picks it up. On reading the message, he smiles.

***

Amanda Skog runs through the forest, this time in her human shape. While her other form can cover a much larger distance, there is something to be said about running as human. It’s- her phone buzzes, and she ignores it. She never lets anything interfere with her exercise.

She elongates her stride and picks up the pace. What- the phone buzzes twice. Still she ignores it.

She jumps through the air, and using a stone as a boost, she propels herself high into the air. For a moment she can delude herself that she is flying. She’d never admit it, but she envies the vampires their ability to fly. It’s- the phone buzzes and the third time is its own charm.

She howls to the sky and checks it. “Ah”, she mutters, incapable of hiding her joy.

***

Linnea Hexer is awoken by the sound of her phone. “What”, she mumbles, groggedly. She blinks at the sudden light as her screen is powered up, and reads the message. “Hey”, she says. “Hey!”
She elbows the other occupant of the bed and Signe Revsand groans. “We got a party to prepare to!”
“You can be your own party”, Signe retorts before slipping under the covers again.

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Good morning. Or perhaps it is good evening, depending upon your location perpendicular to Greenwhich.
My name is Sebastian. I like to write, run, and occassionally grab a beer. Not at the same time though.